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3-2-1

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3-2-1 was a gameshow hosted by former Butlins redcoat Ted Rogers and featured an anthropomorphised trash can called Dusty Bin. It was based on an equally naff Spanish gameshow called Un, dos, tres... respondea otra vez, and managed to give viewers a treble wammy by blending gameshow with quiz show with variety show. In this way it pulled in the same fans as The Generation Game, for example.

The contestants had to decipher meaningless riddles to win a prize or a new bin (the 'booby' prize). Each show had a theme on which all the questions and quizzes followed, such as Swing 60s. Even Dusty would get in on the act and don a theme-inspired costume for that show - like mod wear, for example. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, despite attracting 12.5million viewers during its Christmas special airing in 1988, there was no 11th series, sadly, commissioned by Yorkshire Television for ITV.

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Do You Remember 3-2-1?

Do You Remember 3-2-1?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    Whilst I loved 3-2-1 I never managed to solve any of the clues, they were just too damn tough!! Obviously you had to be a genius to work them out!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Watch the early ones airing on Saturday and Sunday evenings on Challenge at the moment. They're quite different from the later ones in some ways... including actors performing comedy sketches as a sort of Krypton Factor-style observation test... but with the addition of having to catch ping-pong balls... Eh? "It's a quiz... it's a game... it's fortune and fame!" Felt rather sorry for poor old Dusty. Only thing I like about this show is the YTV logo flying off into the title sequence at the start.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    "OK, so it's something to do with blancmange, blancmange is something you have for pudding and another word for pudding is dessert. The Sahara is a famous desert and deserts are full of sand... sand.. stand... Stand and deliver was said by highwaymen... and postmen deliver so it's a package... it's a package tour for two to the Sahara!" (Not an actual quote.) Oh dear goodness. Is Every Second Counts on One?
  • Andrew Dexter
    on
    My family and i used to watch this every saturday, great days! saturday night tv is not as good as it was then!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I enjoyed this show, even in my early teens when you're supposed to be highly rebellious against things like this. It was pretty sexist at times in a way that The Generation Game wasn't, and the contestants were usually thick as s**t, but it was highly original in format and the riddles & puzzles were by no means easy (imagine having to solve them in front of a live audience, with God knows how many millions more watching you live on TV!) It was a playground game at my school to try and do the '3-2-1' finger-gesture as fast as Ted Rogers could do it!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    There was a repeat of one of the shows quite recently on a freeview channel and i was compelled to watch just to see if i could understand the clues any better now im an adult!! No such luck!! It was the show where one of the prizes was a St Bernard dog!!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    ah good old dusty bin...
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Great Saturday night viewing this was. Families used to argue over the rhymes in the final round trying to decipher what the prizes were.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    3 2 1 what a load of garbage,,hey hey get it!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    This may be an urban myth but apparently someone once won a St Bernard dog on the show!

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